thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/south-africa-the-dashing-of-a-dream/At the time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, South Africa’s capitalist economy was on its knees. This was not just because of global boycotting of its exports but because the productivity of black labour in the mines and factories had dropped away. The quality of investment in industry and availability of investment from abroad had fallen sharply. This was expressed in the profitability of capital reaching a postwar low in the global recession of the early 1980s. Unlike other capitalist economies, apartheid South Africa could find no way of turning that around through the further exploitation of the black labour force.

The ruling class had to change strategy. The white leadership under F. W. de Klerk reversed decades of previous policy, opted to release Mandela and go for black majority government that could restore labor discipline and revive profitability. For his efforts, de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela, who was elected president at the age of seventy-six! And profitability did rise dramatically under the first Mandela administration as foreign investment poured in and the rate of exploitation of the workforce rocketed.

As one of the so-called BRICs, South Africa’s economy was traditionally rooted in the primary sectors – the result of a wealth of mineral resources and favourable agricultural conditions. Under Mandela and then later Thabo Mbeki, the black majority saw some improvements in their truly awful living situation, in sanitation, housing, electricity, education, health, and so on, ending the cruel and arbitrary control of movement and the inequality of the apartheid regime.

But despite its professed socialist ideology, written into its constitution, the ANC leaders quickly ditched any radical change to the economy and social structure. ANC governments opted for capitalism and never even considered any state takeover of the mines, resource industries and land owned by the whites. Instead the ANC leaders took a slice of the action themselves.

Thus the tiny, wealthy white minority has remained pretty much unaffected by the ending of apartheid. Now the rich whites have been joined by a few rich blacks who dominate the businesses and exert overwhelming influence over the ruling ANC. The party now expresses the sharp divisions between the majority of working-class blacks and the small black ruling class that has developed. These fissures erupt every so often, as yet without a decisive break.

By the early 2000s, the relative recovery of the economy began to peter out and then the Great Recession globally dealt a technical knock-out to South African capitalism from which it has not recovered. Profitability of capital dropped away and growth in investment, productivity and output began to crawl, making it impossible for the black majority to make any progress. South African industry is now in difficulty; unemployment and crime remain at global highs, and economic growth is foundering.

oldschool paternalist social democracy, evena bit similar to interwar right-socdem in Europe maybenot to derail this interesting thread too much but how do leftist supporters of China reconcile with the fact that the current CPC is firmly class-collaborationist (represents both "the masses" and the "advanced productive forces") but still calls itself communist?

12 days ago

Jose Gomez

I'm just doing it to trigger my father. I mean he's also triggered by my support for Mao.I'm taking the stance Mao did mostly the right thing in his domestic policies and everything after Deng has degenerated China into yet another capitalist state.He can't get his head around modern china being similar to the United States and actually thinks it's worst.

12 days ago

Bentley Martinez

I'm just doing it to trigger my father.The problem is that this isn’t productive in the construction of mass movements, this is just teenage rebellion, which if you want to do it fine, but leave politics out of it, if you don’t you’ll make socialism (even more) unappeling to boomers.

12 days ago

Josiah Moore

His fault, we were talking about Mao and he decided to go off on a tangent about Xi when he damn well know he's a revisionist and have little to do with what we're talking about. I messaged him about how Mao was the first to outlaw Concubines in China with the establishment of Communist China in 1949.Being anti-deg*nerate I thought would be appealing to boomers but I guess they are too far gone into the NPC rabbit hole with radio talk show hosts and infowars because he imminently replied with some irrevelent criticism of modern China about Human trafficing of Christians in China today, then "China is bad". He thinks 80 million died in the great leap forward, laogai prison camps housed 20 million at a time and the usual anti communist stuff. He also went off about Venezuela even though we were not talking about it. It's like this stuff is programmed into his brain. His spam of links from heritage foundation was annoying.

12 days ago

Nicholas Long

You should probably ask some people in the history thread for infographics.

12 days ago

Andrew Carter

I saw that episode and all that was pointed out is how Malema talked so lightly about considering killing white people in South Africa. That isn't communism.

12 days ago

Jaxon Adams

Their 2019 election manifesto did not once mention "capitalism", "socialism", or "communism", so take that how you will.

12 days ago

Grayson Morris

/liberalpol/index.htmlthe clip is taken out of contextalso,kill the boer

Tbh this makes no sense considering South Africa is well into a capitalist stage of development: it's GDP per capita is what Western Europe's was in the 1960s, and it has mostly an industrial proletariat in both the cities and countryside. In addition, the feudalistic structures that existed are all-but-gone economically, and it's farming operates on a capitalist mode of production. There is no reason that it could not transition to a form of real socialism through proletarian revolution.

11 days ago

Jeremiah Stewart

Wow, you found a really cool microsect!

11 days ago

Cameron Cruz

Don't you insult the name of Biko like that you fucking prick.

11 days ago

Carson Diaz

Imagine being the leader of a socialist organization and getting dunked by a dumb liberal and the whole "socialism has a poor track record" without a proper fucking response. Up your fucking game, Malema. Socialists put the first man in space and you let him get away with a dumb statement like that with no better counter than "muh China". Fucking pathetic.

11 days ago

Lincoln Baker

Why the fuck is this still a thing? I know it made sense during apartheid, however the SACP by continuing to be part of it, are just shooting themselves in the foot. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Alliance

If that’s true what’s even the point of they calling themselves communist.

11 days ago

Adrian Rodriguez

The same reason the French, German, and Spanish "Socialist" parties still have the name, branding

10 days ago

Liam Miller

COMMUNIST SOUTH AFRICAOkay, but EFF are not really Communist. They are an ANC splinter that support Zuma style governance and are full of corrupt opportunists. It's not even a secret.I voted for them in the last election just to give the ANC a wake up call and was gifted with Zuma getting the boot.I've not forgotten Melena pledging to die for Zuma and ANC leadership.The EFF are revisionist and opportunistsThis person gets some of it. My father hates what the ANC has become but still participates in their dumb meetings to try to change course.

He doesn't trust EFF leadership, and he's personally meet a few of those people.

I''m not some highly educated sociologist or South African political expert, my old man is too close to this stuff. I am kinda apathetic, and honestly embarrassed to be South African. However, If veterans like my dad who actually fought for democracy and all that equality stuff dislike Melena, then I don't have much reason to disagree with them.

9 days ago

Chase Collins

MelenaMalemaStupid autocorrect.

9 days ago

Henry James

Question, would setting up a Boer-oriented Labour party be worth it in South Africa?

9 days ago

Leo Cook

no

9 days ago

Austin Moore

the only thing we should orient towards boers is a rifle

9 days ago

Wyatt Moore

It'll probably end up like labor-Zionism and that was the foundation of the state of Israel which is til this day, an apartheid-state. So no, not worth it.

9 days ago

Gabriel Hernandez

Okay, then how do you engage the Boer proletariat in the socialist movement: because the EFF is doing the opposite of that.

9 days ago

Benjamin Gray

the Boer proletariatthe entire white population of SA is like 10%. Most of them are bourgeois. The "Boer proletariat"s opinion literally doesn't matter.

9 days ago

Jaxson Gutierrez

Not true; Boer proles vote ANC or EFF.Worse, the bulk of Afrikaners are land-owning farmers.

that picWhere's the lie though? "Well, yes, even in capitalism there's a certain amount of agency but I don't see why we should be throwing these drone operators out of a helicopter, Comrade user, I think you need a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of the American imperial project at the time…"

Fuck, the last thing we need is yet another genocide under our name. We should come up with some consensus on why SA wasn't real communism for when the boer start getting slaughtered.

Maybe they declared they are "marxist leninist" but in reality EFF is just left black nationalist party. Also Malema thinks that China is socialist>>2890882Malema is just dengist thug, nothing really marxist about him.

Not true; Boer proles vote ANC or EFF.They probably also vote for Freedom Front + and some other almost insignificant party.the bulk of Afrikaners are land-owning farmers.Afrikaner =/= Boer. They have a sort of lower to middle-class liberal Euro city dweller verse American nationalistic conservative cowboy farmer thingy; divide…So you guys are okay with all of the antics of herr Malema?Not most folks I know, but he holds a fire to the ANC and DA. Read a survey that suggested most people have little problem voting for rando parties in provincial elections but would prefer ANC remain in control of national government.EFF have and will probably always be opportunistic tossers.proto fascists and cheap populistsMuch respect for some folks in SACP. has the SACP actually stood up against the ANC's neoliberal bullshit?It does that all the time.No:80%Has to be fake. True that most support comes from really poor folks though. However, the majority of the poor support ANC.

There was a protest at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein over outsourcing janitors to private companies (lower paid, fewer benefits) so the protesters + EFF trashed the joint in protest. Take from that what you will

3 days ago

Christian Fisher

littering and fucking up the environment to own the boozhTruly advanced praxis

This reminds me a video somewhere in africa of africans destroying some big solar panels (they were coned by a private company or something like that) and as usual, the far-right spread the video without any context to you know why.

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